- Title
- Woman and Confidante Lamenting her Absent Lover, Folio from an Amaru Shataka (Hundred Stanzas of Amaru)
- Date Made
- circa 1650-1660
- Period
- 17th century
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- 8 x 5 1/2 in. (20.32 x 13.97 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1999.127.19
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Amaru was an 7th- or 8th-century Sanskrit poet who composed a hundred (shataka) verses about love and its various moods. The text verses corresponding to the folio’s imagery are inscribed in the header: “From today onwards, I shall not give any place in my heart to anger against my lover; nor shall I ever mention the name of that poison-like evil-minded one. So will not the night, laughing loudly through the clear race of the moon, pass without him, or will a single day in a rainy season, darkened by clouds, pass without him?” (Amaru Shataka 72)
Here, the heroine is pining for her absent lover and discusses her melancholy mood with her confidante as they sit on a palace terrace. See also its series mate M.71.1.16. Additional folios from this dispersed series, which is distinguished by a meandering flowering vine along the bottom, are in the Asia Society Museum, New York (1979.58) and National Museum of Asian Art, Washington (F1934.16).
